Re:Tito - selfish bastard
on
Tito In Space
·
· Score: 4
not Tito's fault, but the fact that the US taxpayers are paying billions to what amounts to a DAMNED expensive disneyworld attraction should be something that people look at VERY closely.
It's good that it's only a government policy, and I'd agree everybody wins with free software in general, but shouldn't the best program for the job always win out? Shouldn't matter if it's free or not.
Seems the reverse would be obviously bad, requiring microsoft software... I'd be scared of hypocracy if I thought laws like this were good, even if they seem in favor of something I support.
I've always thought free software would win in the end because it was superior, not because people were forced to use it... the other guy is the one who needs that tactic.
Listen to the man. It's easy to *want* games on Linux, but without doing anything to *support* them, there isn't much chance of the dream ever becoming reality.
Linux performance is about equal to windows on just about everyone's account.
it's just that people are used to playing games on windows because there aren't enough linux games, and there aren't enough linux games because people are used to playing games on windows.
Tribes 2, in a (nearly) simultaneous release with the win client, not a year later, not even months... a full retail port developed and tested along side the windows version.
This is a big deal for linux gaming. This time you have to either commit to buying the linux version, or stick to playing on windows only. (To help with the choice, the Linux version is reported to run BETTER than the win version by the people who tested it and have played both.)
If Tribes 2 fails on Linux (and there's a fair chance it may) we may have missed the last effort of this level to bring Blockbuster games to our OS at the same time as win players, and the ONLY way to make sure companies have a reason to release Linux games is to back up our talk with our cash. We've all said that Linux has a market that game developers shouldn't ignore, but this is the point where we need to put up or shut up, because the free ride is over, and each of us has to make a choice, the results of which will impact every future title.
If you can't tell, I'm afraid of what the future of big-name gaming on Linux will be unless companies stop losing money on ports.
oh, and please check out the linux tribes website too...
mandrake is taking redhat's place as the distro to have anyway. redhat is just making it's time till it dies.
I don't envy those companies trying to make money in an opensource arena, but I can say that trying a microsoft "squeeze" tactic will backfire every time.
I mean, if even Quake3 doesn't sell for crap on linux, how can you blame companies for not making the plunge?
Tribes 2 is the next major title coming up, it's one of the biggest games coming down the pike, and they are going to have a near simultaneous Linux release.
Personally, I'd love to see it do extremely well, but I have a feeling, as others probably share, that Linux users don't buy games for linux, and Tribes2 is going to fail on Linux, and leave future developers with little chance of making that jump.
I agree with your point, but I am saying monopolies in general are a bad thing, and it's really impossible to pretend somehow microsoft isn't a monopoly.
Would it be as bad or worse if some other company was doing the same thing? Of course, but that only strenghtens the argument against allowing a single company in *any* industry to leverage a position where they are easily able to crush any competition, and the innovation that would have came with it.
but claiming microsoft is responsible for innovation is like saying Hitler is responsible for peace.
The positive things in the computing world happend in spite of microsoft, not because of them.
Anyone who pretends for a minute that we would still be using punch cards if it wasn't for the tactics of Microsoft... just doesn't get it.
Innovation is not spawned from monolithic companies with control over everything, innovation is born from competition, and thrives on it. Without Microsoft's monopoly, there would be many, many companies competing to be the best, and doing everything and anything required to get their.
the over-used, but appropriate example is the telephone company. With a monopoly, there was no competition, no innovation, the customer could expect very little, and get less. Once the phone companies were broken up, competition reigned, prices plummeted, the industry re-invented itself to be better, cheaper, more efficient, more reliable, all because it needed to to survive the competition.
There is little doubt Microsoft would have been broken up long ago if it wasn't in a technology area, which our justice system is completely incompetent and unable to regulate properly.
This reminds me of a recent commercial by IBM where they paraded dozens of consumers in front of the camera complaining "I want advertisers to know about me, about what I like, about what I buy, about my habits."
It literally sent chills down my spine. But, I guess there are many people who do follow that belief. Personally, I'm not the kind of person who would be comfortable going into a shoe store and having the person there know every kind of shoe I had owned, or to have telemarketers quote to me which magazines I had ever held subscriptions to, or any one of dozens of other examples where my right to privacy was taken away.
I've got a degree in advertising, and I'm pretty interested in it, but I dozed off when he started talking of ad karma.
in the end, the CPM for web ads is probably something which can be easily adjusted to compete with other media based upon results. Coming out with pay-per-view websites, or complicated ad schemes nobody wants to learn just doesn't seem like it has much of a future.
Of course advertisers want the most bang for their buck, but as soon as it starts to inconvenience the target audience, they have just lost the game.
I've been wishing for a good media player for KDE, especially one which supports DivX. This is great news to me.
The thing I don't understand is why people use PNG images on websites when jpg images are much, much smaller and more appropriate for the particular use. I can understand not using gif files but jpeg are "politically correct".
I got an interesting offer from Nihlistic to come work on Vampire:Masquerade a few years ago. But as much as I love games, I can't imagine being a dev, working 20+ hours a day 7 days a week, and not even being sure your game won't just lose money.
Making games would be cool, but a schedule like that would kill most people.
IMHO I think too many people forget that the reason you work is so you can enjoy your time off, and if your time off is destroyed by your job, you should re-evaluate your career.
well, they were losing money pretty well before microsoft bought into them, so they probably didn't end up changing all that much actually.
Too bad, Corel was one of the first / most noticeable companies to embrace linux, and the fact that they are tanking now can be interpreted many ways, most of them bad, whether you take M$ into account or not.
no kidding. even sites like KDE or GNOME are killed by the slashdot effect, and you know they'd have no problem allowing mirrors if anyone from here asked.
they have come up with a list of reasons why they won't bother, but the truth is, with very little effort they could easily mirror these sites, sure some exceptions, but overall, if they wanted to fix this problem, they could.... it's just a matter of working instead of listing excuses.
I'd guess if open office was stable and usable by the time this net stuff comes around, and companies like DELL could ship it without liscensing worries, it'd be pretty damn attractive to them, and everyone else. Not to mention beneficial to the customer.
Why not a movement to add TrueType fonts as a more standardized option in Linux GUIs?
Would be cool not to have to jump through hoops every time I set up a linux box just to get all the websites to show up nicely.
It's also pretty hard to argue with the fact that there are more freely, and commercially available truetype fonts than any other, and when exchanging documents with people on other platforms, or viewing most web pages, truetype fonts are a neccesity.
To me, I'd rather see wider font support overall than efforts to blur existing fonts, which most likely don't look like they should anyway.
sounds like a security nightmare waiting to happen.
ack!
________
they slipped the silvery bonds of earth
on
The Challenger
·
· Score: 1
to touch the face of god.
anyway...
when you waste billions on nothing more than a PR stunt to make yourself more tax dollars, you'd better be prepared to pay the price when it backfires in your face.
Slashdot Mirror
________
Seems the reverse would be obviously bad, requiring microsoft software... I'd be scared of hypocracy if I thought laws like this were good, even if they seem in favor of something I support.
I've always thought free software would win in the end because it was superior, not because people were forced to use it... the other guy is the one who needs that tactic.
________
________
________
Linux performance is about equal to windows on just about everyone's account.
it's just that people are used to playing games on windows because there aren't enough linux games, and there aren't enough linux games because people are used to playing games on windows.
________
This is a big deal for linux gaming. This time you have to either commit to buying the linux version, or stick to playing on windows only. (To help with the choice, the Linux version is reported to run BETTER than the win version by the people who tested it and have played both.)
If Tribes 2 fails on Linux (and there's a fair chance it may) we may have missed the last effort of this level to bring Blockbuster games to our OS at the same time as win players, and the ONLY way to make sure companies have a reason to release Linux games is to back up our talk with our cash. We've all said that Linux has a market that game developers shouldn't ignore, but this is the point where we need to put up or shut up, because the free ride is over, and each of us has to make a choice, the results of which will impact every future title.
If you can't tell, I'm afraid of what the future of big-name gaming on Linux will be unless companies stop losing money on ports.
oh, and please check out the linux tribes website too...
________
I don't envy those companies trying to make money in an opensource arena, but I can say that trying a microsoft "squeeze" tactic will backfire every time.
________
buy linux games instead please, or we'll be stuck with windows forever.
________
I mean, if even Quake3 doesn't sell for crap on linux, how can you blame companies for not making the plunge?
Tribes 2 is the next major title coming up, it's one of the biggest games coming down the pike, and they are going to have a near simultaneous Linux release.
Personally, I'd love to see it do extremely well, but I have a feeling, as others probably share, that Linux users don't buy games for linux, and Tribes2 is going to fail on Linux, and leave future developers with little chance of making that jump.
________
Would it be as bad or worse if some other company was doing the same thing? Of course, but that only strenghtens the argument against allowing a single company in *any* industry to leverage a position where they are easily able to crush any competition, and the innovation that would have came with it.
________
The positive things in the computing world happend in spite of microsoft, not because of them.
Anyone who pretends for a minute that we would still be using punch cards if it wasn't for the tactics of Microsoft... just doesn't get it.
Innovation is not spawned from monolithic companies with control over everything, innovation is born from competition, and thrives on it. Without Microsoft's monopoly, there would be many, many companies competing to be the best, and doing everything and anything required to get their.
the over-used, but appropriate example is the telephone company. With a monopoly, there was no competition, no innovation, the customer could expect very little, and get less. Once the phone companies were broken up, competition reigned, prices plummeted, the industry re-invented itself to be better, cheaper, more efficient, more reliable, all because it needed to to survive the competition.
There is little doubt Microsoft would have been broken up long ago if it wasn't in a technology area, which our justice system is completely incompetent and unable to regulate properly.
________
It literally sent chills down my spine. But, I guess there are many people who do follow that belief. Personally, I'm not the kind of person who would be comfortable going into a shoe store and having the person there know every kind of shoe I had owned, or to have telemarketers quote to me which magazines I had ever held subscriptions to, or any one of dozens of other examples where my right to privacy was taken away.
________
in the end, the CPM for web ads is probably something which can be easily adjusted to compete with other media based upon results. Coming out with pay-per-view websites, or complicated ad schemes nobody wants to learn just doesn't seem like it has much of a future.
Of course advertisers want the most bang for their buck, but as soon as it starts to inconvenience the target audience, they have just lost the game.
________
The thing I don't understand is why people use PNG images on websites when jpg images are much, much smaller and more appropriate for the particular use. I can understand not using gif files but jpeg are "politically correct".
________
Making games would be cool, but a schedule like that would kill most people.
IMHO I think too many people forget that the reason you work is so you can enjoy your time off, and if your time off is destroyed by your job, you should re-evaluate your career.
________
Tribes 2 will be coming out shortly for Linux, and if we don't support it, other companies will hesitate on making that investment.
linux tribes
________
Too bad, Corel was one of the first / most noticeable companies to embrace linux, and the fact that they are tanking now can be interpreted many ways, most of them bad, whether you take M$ into account or not.
________
________
they have come up with a list of reasons why they won't bother, but the truth is, with very little effort they could easily mirror these sites, sure some exceptions, but overall, if they wanted to fix this problem, they could.... it's just a matter of working instead of listing excuses.
________
I'd guess if open office was stable and usable by the time this net stuff comes around, and companies like DELL could ship it without liscensing worries, it'd be pretty damn attractive to them, and everyone else. Not to mention beneficial to the customer.
________
space junk problems solved, rocket explosion danger eliminated, me rich.
what more could you want?
________
Would be cool not to have to jump through hoops every time I set up a linux box just to get all the websites to show up nicely.
It's also pretty hard to argue with the fact that there are more freely, and commercially available truetype fonts than any other, and when exchanging documents with people on other platforms, or viewing most web pages, truetype fonts are a neccesity.
To me, I'd rather see wider font support overall than efforts to blur existing fonts, which most likely don't look like they should anyway.
________
________
ack!
________
anyway...
when you waste billions on nothing more than a PR stunt to make yourself more tax dollars, you'd better be prepared to pay the price when it backfires in your face.
________